The past couple of years have been a sort of barren wasteland for in-person tech conferences. Meeting in large groups was not wise during the COVID pandemic causing hotels and convention centers everywhere to go empty. However, it looks like things are beginning to open back up in the world of data-focused tech conferences in 2022.
2020 and 2021
Before we look at this year let’s first look back and reflect on the impact of COVID on the world of technology and data management conferences. Early in 2020, as the degree of the COVID pandemic became apparent, many tech conferences either were canceled or revamped.
One of the earliest events to be modified was the IBM Think 2020 event, originally scheduled for the week of May 4-7, 2020 in San Francisco. IBM canceled the in-person conference and announced a “Digital Event Experience” to occur May 5 -6. This amounted to what most conferences became during the pandemic – watching presentations over the web, like a bunch of webinars. Many other events followed suit, with IDUG Db2 Tech Conference, Microsoft Build, Salesforce Connections, Oracle World, and many others eventually delivering online versions of their events.
Instead of revamping to an online event, some conferences canceled their events; some for good! The first harbinger of things to come was the cancellation of the South by Southwest conference, originally scheduled for March 13-22, 2020. Industry analyst firm Gartner canceled or postponed all of its conferences for April through August 2020. And perhaps the biggest news of all, O’Reilly Media closed its conference business for good, which sounded the death knell for its annual Strata conference. Data management professionals will miss Strata as it was one of the only vendor-neutral events that focused on data and AI.
As 2020 turned to 2021 it became the modus operandi for conferences to be held primarily online. Some began to wonder if COVID would kill the in-person tech conference once and for all. For many reasons, I don’t see that happening.
For one thing, an online event is easy to disengage from. Sitting at your laptop watching a presentation is no substitute for an in-person presentation where there are no disturbances and you can easily interact with the presenter (via Q&A or even tracking them down after they speak). On the other hand, it is very easy to stop paying attention when you are watching online. I wonder what that email that just showed up was… let’s check… oh, I’ve been waiting for that {clicks a link and starts web browsing}… Was that the doorbell? Probably, because the dog is barking… and so on… none of those distractions exist when you are sitting in a room at a conference!
Furthermore, people like to interact with their peers to share and learn things. That is much easier to do at an industry event where everybody has similar interests. So, in-person events went away for a period of time because it was the prudent thing to do to stop the spread of COVID. But what about now?
2022
Well, the availability and effectiveness of COVID vaccines and people’s desire and willingness to attend conferences seem to mean that 2022 will see a resurgence in live, in-person tech, and data management events. I am not saying that threat of COVID is over (far be it from me as I am no immunologist or M.D.), but the general mood seems to be that it is once again time to attend conferences. Hopefully, we will do it safely.
Furthermore, I contend that an in-person product demonstration can be more illuminating and educational than similar online demos. And it is easier to ask questions and clear up confusing issues or technical problems face-to-face than it is over the web.
In March 2022, I attended my first in-person event since the COVID pandemic began: the SHARE conference in Dallas, TX. I was not sure what to expect, but the event was well-attended and people seemed genuinely enthused to be participating and interacting with their peers again. If this is indicative of the overall mood of the tech world then 2022 will probably be the year that you start attending your favorite data and tech events again. And from what I see, there will be no shortage of opportunities for you to attend.
Upcoming Data Management Conferences
Coming up soon is Data Summit 2022 taking place in Boston on May 17-18, 2022. This event is managed by Unisphere and bills itself as the data management and analytics conference. I have attended and spoken at this event in the past. It offers a lot of educational value, particularly in the realm of data management, analytics, and AI. There are co-running sub-events focused on DataOps and AI/ML that may be of interest.
Next up is the World Data Summit taking place May 18-20, 2022 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This three-day event hosts speakers knowledgeable on all aspects of data analysis, unstructured data, data visualization, and more.
One conference that I am very much looking forward to attending again is the North American IDUG Db2 Tech Conference, to be held this year in Boston, MA from July 11-14, 2022. If you use IBM’s Db2 DBMS then this is an event you won’t want to miss… not to mention that I will be delivering a couple of presentations there this year, too!
And I cannot mention IBM without also mentioning Oracle, can I? Well, this year Oracle OpenWorld has a new name – Oracle CloudWorld. And it has a new location, too! Although for many years Oracle held its events in San Francisco, this year the event will be in Las Vegas from October 16-20, 2022. There is a bit of irony in renaming an in-person conference to CloudWorld though! The online events held that past couple of years during the pandemic were more cloud-like virtual events. But I understand the reasoning, what with cloud computing becoming so popular these days.
Of course, there are many other in-person events that might be of interest, and I am probably missing a few. That said, here are some others to keep in mind:
- Data Governance & Information Quality Conference June 6-10, 2022 in San Diego, CA
- The Data Warehousing Institute August 7-12, 2022 in San Diego, CA
- PASS Data Community Summit November 15-18, 2022 – focusing on SQL Server this will be a hybrid conference in-person in Seattle and also online
The Bottom Line
2022 looks like the year that in-person tech conferences will be returning, so if you are comfortable traveling and being out and amongst people again this year, you might want to start making your plans to attend your favorite events.